Candidates on TV Provide Varied Diet That May Pall but Is Difficult to Resist

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 18—Wagging his finger, Senator Henry M. Jackson appeared in Caroline Dilworth's living room here last night and started posing brusque questions about Jimmy Carter's stands. Miss Dilworth wagged her finger at her television set and threw the questions back: “Where do you stand?” she asked the Senator. “What would you do?”

The Senator, or his apparition. vanished without offering any answers and the former Georgia governor took his place on the screen. “Look at that silly grin,” Miss Dilworth said vehemently. “What makes you think that you could represent the United States of America?”

Again there was no answer, For Miss Dilworth— a retired Federal employee and a registered Republican who has already decided to vote for President Ford in the March 9 Florida primary —the political campaign is essentially a series of onesided encounters.

As might be expected, the same is true for nearly all her neighbors in College Park, a section of modest single‐story middle‐class dwellings.

In two days of conversations in the neighborhood, it seemed that even those who describe themselves as being “turned off” by the campaign were responding to it as part of their TV lives. “It's in front of you all the time.” complained Rolla Blazier, a barber. “It's there every night on the 6 o'clock News. People just get tired of it.”

Of 26 people interviwed. only two had any direct contact with the candidates who have been appearing regularly here in Central Florida. Jim Cinamon, an assistant principal of Edgewater High School, was accosted by Mr. Carter at a football game last October. Since then he has paid particular attention to the Georgian on TV and now may vote for him.

“It's like buying an automobile,” he explained. “After you've picked your model, you notice it every time one of them passes you on the highway.”

Shelley Rebello, who sells plants and her macramé at a shop called The Greenery, said she went to one of Governor George C. Wallace's rallies out of curiosity.

Her parents are supporting Ronald Reagan, but whenever she thinks of the former California governor, she remembers that he seemed to be wearing new bluejeans when he was filmed on his ranch for the C.B.S. program “60 Minutes.” She took this as a sign of an artificial lifestyle and, having registered as a Democrat, is now focusing on Messrs. Carter and Jackson.

Carl Weisinger, who sells and services washing machines, inclines to Mr. Jackson, but worries that the Senator isn't getting “the projection he's going to need.” The Carter advertising. the first of the campaign to be shown on TV here, has never held his attention because, as he explains it, “I was looking past him anyway.”

Communications textbooks call this “selective perception.” A number of the viewers could describe the process better than the texts.

Jane Rolland, a Wallace supporter who said she watched Walter Cronkite every night, was surprised to hear that there were candidates named Morris K. Udall and Fred Harris in the race, but upset that she had overlooked them. “When I get geared for one person,” she said, “I just look for what he does and tune everybody else out.”

Even the most attentive viwers found it hard to distinguish between what they had seen in a political advertisement and what they had seen on the news.

Steve Constant, a retired Air Force officer now working here as a part‐time tax accountant, had noticed that the network news programs were devoting more time to issues and the backgrounds of the candidates than they did four years ago.

He thought he had seen TV spots for Mr. Udall. Jane Crow, an English teacher at the high school, thought she had seen Birch Bayh spots. Since neither candidate has had advertising here, they must have been describing news reports.

Carolyn Allen, a student nurse, described in detail a news report on Mr. Carter that she said she had seen. In fact she, was describing one of his ads. Her neighbor, Virginia Sharpe, said she had become aware of Mr. Carter “just when he came on TV.”

Asked what she liked about him, she unconsciously paraphrased one of his ads, noting that he was “more for the working people” than the other candidates because he had worked with his hands.

In commenting on what she regards as the impertinent manner of some TV reporters, Mrs. Rolland said: “If my dad were President of the united States. I would want him to he respected.”

The conversation was interrupted by her 4‐year‐old son, Larry, who entered the living room wearing a scowl. He had been looking forward to seeing a character called Fonzie on a program called “Happy Days.” but President Ford had claimed Fonzie's time for a news conference.

“Don't worry darling,” Mrs. Allen told her son, “he'll be off soon.”

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A version of this archives appears in print on February 22, 1976, on Page 44 of the New York edition with the headline: Candidates on TV Provide Varied Diet That May Pall but Is Difficult to Resist. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe